The purpose of this study was to test whether personal commitment to community was related to political involvement in two cultural contexts: Italy and the USA. Participants were 566 adolescents aged 14–19 years : 311 Italians and 255 Americans. Participants filled out a self-report questionnaire. Analyses of variance revealed that American high school students reported higher levels of personal commitment to community than did their Italian peers and that many forms of political involvement were significantly more common among American adolescents. (...) Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that personal commitment to community was strongly and positively associated with involvement in political activities in both adolescent samples. Thus, fostering personal commitments to community could potentially lead youth to political engagement. (shrink)

The present study examined the role of morality, competence, and attractiveness as perceived from faces in predicting hiring decisions for men and women. Results showed that for both female and male applicants, facial competence significantly predicted the hiring decision directly and indirectly, through the mediation of the overall impression. Decisions concerning female applicants were, however, significantly predicted by multiple dimensions—that is, facial morality, facial competence, and attractiveness—with the mediation of the overall impression. Facial competence was the only significant predictor of (...) impression and, in turn, hiring decision about men. These findings resonate the mottoVirtutem forma decorat, “Beauty adorns virtue,” painted by Leonardo da Vinci on the reverse side of the portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci, and suggest that women’s chances of getting a job are less than those of men whenever they do not show a moralandcompetentandattractive face. (shrink)